How gratifying to read in the Union-Tribune last week of the impending launch of a state-owned wind-energy project in Baja California.

The $26.2 million project in La Rumorosa, just across the border from a sparsely populated stretch of East County, is only a five-turbine vanguard of an envisioned wind-energy hub stretching along the ridges of the Sierra Juarez between Tecate and Mexicali.

But as subsequent projects – including ones planned by San Diego companies Sempra Energy and Cannon Power Group – are developed, they will provide good jobs in construction and operations for Mexicans and related economic stimulus for the area. They will provide green energy to Baja California, reducing reliance on imported fossil fuels. And they will provide clean wind energy to the United States.

We took particular note of the story’s observation that what community opposition there has been has come primarily from north of the border.

Some of those opponents, no doubt, are the same ones who oppose a 100-turbine wind-energy project proposed for McCain Valley, a federal conservation area adjacent to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. That private project, called Tule Wind, could eventually produce 10 percent of the energy used in San Diego County on a typical day. We have previously expressed our dismay at the irony that it is environmentalists, who on one hand call for expanded use of renewable energy, who rise up to oppose projects such as Tule Wind or those planned for Baja California.

With California utilities under a legislative mandate to produce 20 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by this year and 33 percent by 2020, such opposition is as counterproductive as it is contradictory.

Sempra, which is awaiting approvals from the Mexican government’s environmental agency and from the U.S. Department of Energy, hopes eventually to generate 1,000 megawatts of power with its Energy Sierra Juarez project, with the first phase beginning construction next year.

Cannon Power’s project aims to generate 400-500 megawatts at build-out, enough to power about 200,000 households. Initially, the company is targeting the Mexican market, but may eventually export to the U.S.

If only such sensible, necessary and environmentally friendly projects were easier to site in appropriate locations on this side of the border.